I used to have two "very good" daughters

God has blessed me with two beautiful daughters, and in different ways they used to be "very good".

My first daughter, Tava, was given to me and my husband in 1979, by her birth father. Her mother had died when she was 14 months old, and she had been passed around from home to home until she was almost dead. When we took her she weighted 10 lbs., at 2 1/2 years old, about to die. We took her in when our firstborn son was also 2 1/2 years old, and found that they were only 24 hours apart in age, our twins.
After Tava regained her health, she was a wonderful addition to the family, and 8 months later I had a second son, Gabriel. The three children grew up together, in our Zapotec village, Loxicha. The boys were typical boys, tearing down the house, while Tava was quieter and more gentle. The boys needed to be handled firmly, Tava responded to a simple frown. She never talked back, was always helpful, and never fussed, she was "very good".
Since we were the only Anglo family in town, with a Zapotec daughter, people would stop and talk with me on the road. "Where did you get her? Is her mother dead, where is she buried? Whose family is she? " It was impossible to hide her different roots, even if we had wanted to.
When the kids were preteens, all three got chickenpox. One of the boys got sick first, then Tava, then the other boy. Our sons didn't suffer much, since people with European roots have more immunity than Native Americans. Tava was very ill, and spend many days in bed, and I took very good care of her. When she was recovering, she commented, "I didn't expect you to take such good care of me."
I was surprised, and sought to find out what she meant. People had told her over the years, "don't give the lady any trouble, or she will throw you out." So for 10 years Tava had been good, very good, so I wouldn't throw her out of our home. I explained how much trouble we had gone through to legally adopt her so that no one could take her away from us, that we were her family for ever. It took a year and all the $ we had to make her ours, we would never give her up. Back in the 1980's in rural Oaxaca adoptions were rare, her papers are stamped 001, on page 1 of the book of adoptions for our county.
When Tava felt better, she stopped being "good" and started being a normal, fussy, picky girl. Not too much, but enough that we knew that she finally felt at home and safe.
How do you feel with God? Are you trying to be "very good" so he will let you into his home eventually? Or are you at home and safe in his love?

Panchis was also very good, in a different way.

God gave me a second daughter, also a Zapotec Indian abandoned by her family. Esperanza was born with multiple malformations which made it impossible for her mother to raise her. When we got her she was blind, deaf, and with no anus for defecation. She had lived on her body fat since birth, and weighed less than 4 pounds at 40 days old. During the first year that we had her she grew very little, since the doctors in Oaxaca had no experience with such severely deformed children. I was told over and over, "take her home to die, it is not worth trying to help her. There are other children who need our help and are worth saving."
But we had called her Esperanza, which means Hope, and put our hope in God for her life. When she had a shunt put in her brain, she began to hear, and at a year she began to see, with no medical explanation. She weighed 8 pounds at her first birthday, and soon was given a colostomy which enabled her to defecate and begin to eat better. At 2 years she could sit up and scoot around on her bottom. She never walked, never talked, and could only eat finger food by herself. For almost 11 years I carried her, diapered her, fed her, shouldered the huge burden of keeping her alive, and loved her immensly.
Among her many problems was the fact that her brain was very small, she didn't have enough neurons to do more than a year old baby could. As her body grew, she was less and less able to move or control it. In addition, her neurological condition caused her to seizure to the point of cardiopulmonary arrest. All her life someone had to be in the room with her, because she would convulse and quit breathing within a minute or two, sometimes 20-30 times a week. Life with Panchis, as we called her, was very exciting, as we had to do CPR and give her meds at the same time.
The funny thing was that people would see her in her special stroller, or sitting quietly on my lap, and remark, "Oh, she is such a good little girl! She isn't running around and climbing on the chairs, and jabbering 24/7 like my child. She doesn't get dirty, or make messes, or drive you nuts with questions. She is so good!"
Yes, she was very good, if by good you mean passive, not stretching you as a mother, never able to ask why is the sky blue, never being able to run or swing or help you bake cookies, never able to say, "Mother, I love you so much!" I would have given any thing I had to have her be "bad" and live a normal life.
Panchis isn't "very good" any more, because a year ago she died and went to heaven. Now she can jump and fly and chatter all she wants, throw kisses to Jesus, and wait for me and her family to join her.
If you have little children, don't expect them to be "good", just let them be loved, and send them forth to explore the world. That is why they are here, that is why God gave them to you.

Gerry Gutierrez, Oaxaca, June 2005